2012

Technical Summary

IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements

as issued at 1 January 2012. Includes IFRSs with an effective date after 1 January 2012 but not the IFRSs they will replace.
This extract has been prepared by IFRS Foundation staff and has not been approved by the IASB. For the requirements reference must be made to International Financial Reporting Standards.

This Standard prescribes the basis for presentation of general purpose financial statements to ensure comparability both with the entitys financial statements of previous periods and with the financial statements of other entities. It sets out overall requirements for the presentation of financial statements, guidelines for their structure and minimum requirements for their content. A complete set of financial statements comprises: (a) a statement of financial position as at the end of the period; (b) a statement of profit and loss and other comprehensive income for the period; (c) a statement of changes in equity for the period; (d) a statement of cash flows for the period; (e) notes, comprising a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory information; and (f) a statement of financial position as at the beginning of the earliest comparative period when an entity applies an accounting policy retrospectively or makes a retrospective restatement of items in its financial statements, or when it reclassifies items in its financial statements. An entity whose financial statements comply with IFRSs shall make an explicit and unreserved statement of such compliance in the notes. An entity shall not describe financial statements as complying with IFRSs unless they comply with all the requirements of IFRSs. The application of IFRSs, with additional disclosure when necessary, is presumed to result in financial statements that achieve a fair presentation. When preparing financial statements, management shall make an assessment of an entitys ability to continue as a going concern. An entity shall prepare financial statements on a going concern basis unless management either intends to liquidate the entity or to cease trading, or has no realistic alternative but to do so. When management is aware, in making its assessment, of material uncertainties related to events or conditions that

may cast significant doubt upon the entitys ability to continue as a going concern, the entity shall disclose those uncertainties. An entity shall present separately each material class of similar items. An entity shall present separately items of a dissimilar nature or function unless they are immaterial. An entity shall not offset assets and liabilities or income and expenses, unless required or permitted by an IFRS. An entity shall present a complete set of financial statements (including comparative information) at least annually. Except when IFRSs permit or require otherwise, an entity shall disclose comparative information in respect of the previous period for all amounts reported in the current periods financial statements. An entity shall include comparative information for narrative and descriptive information when it is relevant to an understanding of the current periods financial statements. When the entity changes the presentation or classification of items in its financial statements, the entity shall reclassify comparative amounts unless reclassification is impracticable. An entity shall clearly identify the financial statements and distinguish them from other information in the same published document. An entity may present a single statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income, with profit or loss and other comprehensive income presented in two sections. The sections shall be presented together, with the profit or loss section presented first followed directly by the other comprehensive income section. An entity may present the profit or loss section in a separate statement of profit or loss. If so, the separate statement of profit or loss shall immediately precede the statement presenting comprehensive income, which shall begin with profit or loss. The other comprehensive income section shall present line items for amounts of other comprehensive income in the period, classified by nature (including share of the other comprehensive income of associates and joint ventures accounted for using the equity method and grouped into those that, in accordance with other IFRSs : (a) will not be reclassified subsequently to profit or loss; and (b) will be reclassified subsequently to profit or loss when specific conditions are met. An entity shall recognise all items of income and expense in a period in profit or loss unless an IFRS requires or permits otherwise.

The notes shall: (a) present information about the basis of preparation of the financial statements and the specific accounting policies used in accordance with paragraphs 117124; (b) disclose the information required by IFRSs that is not presented elsewhere in the financial statements; and (c) provide information that is not presented elsewhere in the financial statements, but is relevant to an understanding of any of them. An entity shall disclose, in the summary of significant accounting policies or other notes, the judgements, apart from those involving estimations (see paragraph 125), that management has made in the process of applying the entitys accounting policies and that have the most significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements. An entity shall disclose information about the assumptions it makes about the future, and other major sources of estimation uncertainty at the end of the reporting period, that have a significant risk of resulting in a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next financial year. An entity shall disclose information that enables users of its financial statements to evaluate the entitys objectives, policies and processes for managing capital. An entity shall also provide additional disclosures on puttable financial instruments classified as equity instruments.